Activision confirms no zombies in Black Ops: Declassified

Vita's Black Ops Declassified will not feature zombies, Activision community manager Dan Amrich confirmed on his blog, One of Swords. Zombies mode got pushed out so the team could focus on building multiplayer.

"This is the first Call of Duty game on Vita, and it needs to deliver on its core strengths – arguably, multiplayer gaming with twin-stick controls in a portable format. That's the core experience, and that simply needs to come first. There's always a list of things you want to do and things you need to do, and at the end of the day, realistic goals are the ones that people actually attain," Amrich wrote.

"Declassified will offer a Hostiles Mode, which challenges you to defeat waves of enemies, but alas, those enemies are not shambling corpses. So we'll see what the future brings for Zombies, but for Declassified, it's an MP focus first and foremost."

Black Ops Declassified is out on November 13, right alongside Black Ops 2, which does include a (very expansive) zombies mode.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified developer Nihilistic Software revealed new details about Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified today. First, the developer said it would “love” to include Zombies, but said on Twitter that “Only Activision and Sony have the power to greenlight Zombies mode for CoD Vita. We would love to do it if they ask. But it’s not our call.”

Later, Nihilistic wrote that “development is crossing the finish line” and added that whether or not the game will have downloadable content is “up to Activision,” reiterating that “nothing has been announced.”

The studio tweeted that there will be six multiplayer maps and also revealed that Black Ops Declassified will have seven killstreaks, including Spy Plane, Care Package, Counter-Spy Plane, Mortar Strike, Sentry Gun, Advanced Spy Plane and Attack Helicopter. Meanwhile, the multiplayer modes were also revealed and will include Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed Deathmatch, Drop Zone, Free-for-All and Team Tactical, which shuffles the other modes. Another tweet says “No theater mode and no additional game modes have been announced.” Nihilistic also confirmed that the minimum number of players in private matches is two, and the maximum is five. As for classes, there will be “5 Preset classes, 5 Custom slots, and 1 ‘Near Shared’ class slot.”

Another tweet said there will be no killcams, and Nihilistic confirmed the wave-based “Hostiles” mode is single-player only. As for multiplayer, private matches will be created using the Party app, and hybrid “private + public” matches will be created if your party is less than eight players.

In addition, a later tweet adds that “Back touch is used for breath holding in Sniper scope mode. Melee is activated by touching anywhere on front except buttons.” The studio added that “Activision's central audio group was very helpful in capturing the authentic audio for weapons in the game” and that development by Activision “started about a year ago” and Nihilistic “were brought in shortly thereafter.”

Black Ops Declassified is set to hit Vita in November, though a specific date has yet to be revealed. For much more info on the game, including how we think it’s shaping up so far, check out our Black Ops Declassified hands-on impressions from earlier this week.